Arne Duncan’s Wrong Turn on Reform: How Federal Dollars Fueled the Testing Backlash

In 2009, Arne Duncan, who had just been appointed Secretary of Education, was experiencing a high point in his career. His close friend, who happened to be an avid basketball player, had been elected as president. During his confirmation hearing, Senator Lamar Alexander, a Republican, praised Duncan as the best choice for the position.

Buoyed by this bipartisan support, Duncan embarked on a mission to strengthen the standards and accountability movement in education, which had been established through the No Child Left Behind Act. However, his approach of significantly expanding standardized testing proved to be a misstep that led to negative consequences. It gave rise to the opt-out movement, radicalized teachers’ unions, and resulted in a loss of political support for federal education policy.

Duncan’s decision to evaluate all teachers across all grades and subjects based partly on student test scores was a strategic mistake. This policy ended up uniting forces that would usually be at odds with each other. Now, Duncan’s most vehement opponents want to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education entirely, while even his supporters want to reduce its power. Furthermore, Duncan has downplayed his department’s role in encouraging the creation of more tests.

"I have never seen both Democrats and Republicans express such a desire to limit the authority of the federal Department of Education," stated Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers.

This situation began in 2009 when it became apparent that states were in dire need of funding due to the struggling economy. Recognizing this, Duncan devised Race to the Top, a clever program that offered states the opportunity to receive a portion of a $4.35 billion federal fund if they implemented specific accountability and school choice policies. One of these policies involved evaluating all teachers based on their students’ test score growth. The program made it clear that this evaluation method should be used even for educators in non-tested grades and subjects, such as social studies and first grade, for which alternative measures of student learning and performance needed to be utilized.

Race to the Top was successful. Supporters of a Colorado law that required 50 percent of teachers’ evaluations to be based on test scores pointed to the $175 million the state stood to gain from the program. Similarly, New York implemented a comprehensive law that based 40 percent of teachers’ evaluations on test scores, all with the goal of competing for $700 million in Race to the Top funds, which the state ultimately received.

A recent study confirmed that Race to the Top had a significant impact on state policies. The National Center for Teacher Quality found that in 2009, only 15 states used "objective" measures, such as test scores, to evaluate teachers. By 2013, that number had increased to 41 states.

Arne Duncan declined to be interviewed for this piece. However, according to Department spokesperson Dorie Nolt, Race to the Top achieved what Duncan had intended: to bring about educational change through the ideas of educators and state leaders rather than through mandates from Washington. Nolt also emphasized that the over $4 billion invested in the program was an unprecedented commitment to reform, which not only brought about innovation in funded states but also stimulated collaboration between states to create more opportunities for students, particularly those with greater needs, to succeed. Nolt stated that the innovations spurred by Race to the Top now benefit nearly half of the country’s students and 1.5 million teachers across the nation.

It should be noted that states were not required to participate in Race to the Top, and initially, 10 states, including Washington, chose not to engage in the program’s first phase. However, the Department of Education under Duncan’s leadership revoked Washington’s waiver from No Child Left Behind because the state did not evaluate teachers and principals based on test scores. To be granted a waiver, states were obligated to develop evaluation systems that incorporated multiple valid measures, including student growth data, as a significant factor in determining performance levels. In simple terms, this meant using student test scores to assess teachers.

Meanwhile, states that had aligned themselves with Race to the Top and the NCLB waivers encountered an unexpected obstacle: evaluating the growth of students for teachers in non-tested grades and subjects. This issue has primarily focused on teachers of reading and math in grades 4-8, as they can be assessed based on state tests mandated by the federal government. However, teachers in non-tested grades and subjects make up the majority of the teaching workforce. Unfortunately, only a few state laws were created to deal with this issue and address these two categories of educators separately.

The Department of Education, under Duncan’s leadership, presented three options to tackle this problem: utilize new assessments created by teachers, known as student learning objectives; develop new standardized tests that are tailored to subjects that are traditionally not tested; or employ collective performance measures. Essentially, the federal government left it up to the states to decide between hastily creating a surplus of new tests or unfairly evaluating teachers based on tests that they have little or no influence over.

States ended up implementing a combination of both approaches. Many districts opted to use group scores, or what the Department of Education calls "measures of collective performance." This means that teachers are evaluated based on students and subjects they do not teach. For example, an art teacher may be evaluated based on English test scores, or a kindergarten teacher may be judged on the scores of third graders. Stories have emerged from various parts of the country, including New Mexico, Florida, Tennessee, and New York, in which educators are furious that their evaluation ratings are determined by scores that they could not control.

Lily Eskelsen Garcia, the president of the National Education Association, attempted to address this issue by urging Duncan’s department to specify that no teacher should be evaluated based on the scores of students they have never met. However, the department refused to comply with her request.

Some districts have tried to avoid the unfairness of collective measures by creating new tests to evaluate teachers. For instance, New York City uses a series of standardized "performance assessments", sometimes including both pre- and post-tests, as part of its teacher evaluation system. Colorado is currently expanding its assessment options and at least one district in the state has developed standardized tests for art, music, and physical education. Reports suggest that Chicago and New Mexico are following suit.

During a Senate hearing, the Commissioner of Education in Kentucky estimated that 40% of the state’s tests were due to the federally incentivized teacher evaluation system. Unfortunately, it is difficult to obtain concrete data regarding the amount of time spent on testing, and it is often unclear what exactly has led to the increase in assessments. In Ohio, however, there is strong evidence suggesting that teacher evaluation has contributed significantly to the proliferation of tests that many are criticizing. A report from Ohio’s Education Department revealed that most testing was required as a result of the statewide teacher evaluation system and NCLB’s requirements. This includes testing in grades K-2, much of which was mandated by the evaluation law.

This should come as no surprise, as Ohio had promised Duncan in their Race to the Top application that they would introduce a challenging range of "supplemental tests, end-of-course exams, and performance-based assessments" for their evaluation system.

It is possible that this extensive testing is what has sparked the opt-out movement, rather than the NCLB-mandated 3-8 testing that had been in place for a long time. Every state seems to have experienced its own backlash against testing. New York had a significant number of students opting out. Connecticut, Colorado, and Minnesota have all passed bills to reduce the number of assessments. In fact, a recent report found that an astonishing 39 states are attempting to decrease standardized testing.

Duncan has acknowledged the anti-testing sentiment. In a blog post and press conference in August 2014, he recognized and agreed with concerns about over-testing, stating, "There’s plenty of responsibility to share on these challenges, and a fair chunk of that sits with me and my department." He also announced that he would grant NCLB waivers to states that did not factor in test scores for teacher evaluation during a grace period. This allowed states to temporarily decrease the importance placed on tests, but did not do much to address over-testing or the concerns of teachers who were being unfairly evaluated.

However, by early spring 2015, Duncan began to shift the blame to states and districts, suggesting that they were responsible for the issue.

In Kentucky, when faced with a protester who expressed concern about testing in the early grades, Duncan explained that the federal government does not require testing until third grade. Speaking to state school superintendents, Duncan argued that districts mistakenly added additional tests without removing the old ones. However, what Duncan failed to acknowledge in his remarks is the role his department played in encouraging the creation and use of more tests – a policy that still exists with NCLB waivers.

The U.S. Education Department has become the adversary in this situation. Both teachers unions and conservatives argue that Duncan’s actions exemplify the problem with federal overreach. However, the issue lies with one significant decision made by Duncan, rather than the position from which the decision was made.

If Duncan had simply incentivized states to implement evaluations that included test scores only for teachers who already had them, the backlash we see now might have been much smaller. There would not have been the same increase in new tests, and educators would not have been unfairly evaluated.

This is not to say that increased testing is necessarily a bad idea from a policy perspective. There may be value in standardized assessments in the early grades, as well as in arts and science. For example, in Ohio, despite complaints about over-testing, a state report found that students spent only one to three percent of the school year on mandated tests. When including time spent on practice tests, this number only increases by 1.4 percent.

However, regardless of the policy perspective, the increase in testing has resulted in a political backlash that jeopardizes the entire education system. It is evident that evaluating educators on subjects they do not teach is problematic.

Currently, Congress is working on reauthorizing NCLB, and the most likely outcome will be a reduction in the federal role in education. A bipartisan Senate draft bill restricts federal involvement in state teacher evaluation systems and limits federal oversight in school accountability systems.

Unsurprisingly, Duncan has criticized aspects of the rewrite, but his actions have created strong opponents in both Republicans and teachers’ unions – two groups that want to reduce federal involvement. Even Democratic accountability hawks have conceded that the federal role in education will be decreased.

Ironically, Duncan’s overreach has sparked a significant backlash while also putting the White House in a strong negotiating position. The power to grant or deny waivers under the current version of NCLB means that President Obama is not motivated to sign a bill that he does not approve of. However, Democrats may regret this if a rewrite is not completed, and a Republican administration has the freedom to implement its own educational priorities.

Duncan has always stressed the urgency of reform, but this urgency may have harmed his cause, causing him to overplay his hand and ignore political realities. Whether reformers across the country will learn from Duncan’s cautionary tale remains to be seen. The better question to ask is whether they will have another opportunity in the future.

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